


Lance Paints Keith's Nails

by onlyopia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, I Tried, Idiots in Love, Kissing, M/M, My First Fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 22:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13199733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlyopia/pseuds/onlyopia
Summary: Lance paints Keith's nails, coming out happens, feelings are expressed, all that good shit





	Lance Paints Keith's Nails

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ryan81976](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryan81976/gifts).



“What color do you want?”

“Black.”

“That’s too edgy choose a better color.”

“Shut up and just paint my nails black before I change my mind.”

“Shut up with the sass or I’ll paint them pink.”

“Well what color would you paint them?” Lance thought for a moment. He had two options here, give in and paint Keith’s nails black (which, Lance McClain giving in? Unlikely), or be the flirty fuck he was and say whatever came to his mind first. 

Naturally, Lance decided to go with the latter.

“Purple,” he said promptly, and not only until he saw Keith’s visible apprehension did he continue with, “’Cause you have purple eyes, it’d bring them out some.” 

Lance wasn’t one to hold back when he noticed developing feelings for someone, but something about the attraction he had toward Keith was… different. It scared him in a way, it made him feel like he had to lock it up and forget about it, and Lance wasn’t even quite sure why. But the whole “hiding your feelings in fear of rejection” act just wasn’t Lances thing, so what came natural to him inevitably trumps his doubt and came forth, even accidentally. 

Due to his considerably flirtations comment, the atmosphere in the room had ever so slightly become a little tense, building up to what lance knew would either be an awkward brush off of the situation or a direct rejection. But the build up to tragedy seemed to dissipate as Keith looked up from the nail polish bottles littering the floor to Lance. He seemed to be blushing, but Lance didn’t want to bother getting his hopes up for that. Accepted flirtation was one thing, reciprocated feelings was a whole other ball game.

Keith huffed, looking down before holding out the shade of purple he wanted for lance to take. “Whatever.” He said, turning away as Lance took the bottle with a small smile. 

Lance had liked Keith for a while. Like, a really fuckin long while. In fact, it was the exact mullet-wearing fucker sitting in front of him that made his realize he was bisexual in 9th grade. 

“Hey Hunk, I have a huge issue” Lance, age 15, said to his friend Hunk, who was sitting at Lance’s desk doing homework.

“Shoot amigo.” Hunk said, pausing his frantic typing to look up at Lance, who was laying on his bed, all of his long and scrawny limbs falling off the sides. Lance was looking at him upside down. 

“I like someone.”

“And that’s a problem how? You like everyone, except me. I hope.” Lance rolled off the bed and walked over to hunk.

“No, Hunk, my dear friend, Buddy, Pal, love of my life-“

“Get to the point before kiss me.” Lance punched his arm before dramatically spinning on his heel and falling back on the bed.

“y’know how last year I was the self-proclaimed ‘straightest guy ever’”?

“…yeah?”

“well…”

“…well?”

“…I like a boy.”

“oh.” Hunk said, but it wasn’t nearly as surprised sounding as Lance had expected. He sounded more relieved than anything else. “who?”

“Oh, um, well I mean I less like him and more find him like really attractive.”

“Refer to question 1.” Lance turned and saw that Hunk looked genuinely interested. Lance, however, was still thrown for a loop over how Hunk didn’t seem the least bit fazed by his bisexual revelation. 

“Keith. Kogane, Keith Kogane, he’s in our algebra class?”

“Him? Really?”

“yeah. He’s got nice hair, and I let him borrow a pencil one time and when he gave it back I noticed that his eyes are fucking purple, dude. Purple! Who even has Purple eyes?”

“Keith, apparently.”

“I’m serious man, this is a huge problem. How do I even go about this?”

“I dunno, I’d say befriend him first though. Make sure he’s not an asshole.”

“Yeah, that would be ideal. And Hunk?

“Yeah man?” 

“Why don’t you seem the least bit surprised by this?” 

“Because if I had a dollar for every time you called a guy cute and said ‘no homo’ I’d have enough to have pay off my student loans.” Lance pouted before Hunk followed with, “And hey, If Keith ends up being both cool and not straight, I can go into ‘world’s best wingman’ mode.” Lance laughed, then let out a heavy sigh. Hunk smiled at him, and Lance returned it.

===

The whole situation began with Lance criticizing Keith for biting his nails because ‘for one, it’s gross, and two, there’s not even any nail to paint.’ But the conversation quickly switched to more pleasant topics, or as pleasant as Lance describing step by step what he was doing can be. 

“So, since I don’t have any of the really cool nail stuff my sister had, I’m not able to get into all the really cool techniques I know how to do, but thank god we found a nail filer at the mall.”

“Nail filer…?” Lance huffed, taking the filer out and handing it to Keith as he searched the floor for the clear coat.

“It’s like…” he began, picking up the small bottle what was to his right, “It files down and smooths your nails so they’re easier to paint and look nicer and stuff.”

“Yeah, we’re not doing that.” Lance rolled his eyes and took the filer back from Keith.

“We kinda have to, c’mon, it’s not like It hurts or I’m gonna file your nail off or anything.”

“Why is it that I don’t trust you?”

“You wound me, Kogane.” Lance said before taking Keith’s hand.

There was a weird intimacy to Lance holding Keith’s hand, one that he was about 0% prepared for. Keith’s hands were smaller than his own, and he had less boney fingers. Lances’ were definitely a lot smoother then Keiths’, but that didn’t make the situation any less pleasant. Lance found he really liked holding Keith’s hand. 

Keith broke his concentration by asking, “Why are you adding the clear coat on first?”

“It helps the polish stay on longer, just shush and let me do my work.”

“Can I paint yours when you’re done with mine?” Lance visibly froze for a second. He was 98% sure he’d forgotten how to breath, but he knew he’d take to his death regretting the day the passed out from asphyxiation because his crush offered to paint his nails. He was not, in any way, expecting that. He took a quick and quiet breath, then answered. 

“Sure.” He said plainly, continuing to clear coat Keith’s nails. 

Once he finished the first layer, Lance began painting on the color. 

“Do you wanna keep this on for a long time or not, cause like if you don’t want it to stay on I won’t bother adding a bunch of coats.”

“No, no uh, I um. Want it to stay on.” Keith said, before adding, “It just. Looks nice, and would probably keep me from biting them, y’know?” Lance smiled spite himself, Keith was enjoying having his nails painted. Plus, he’d taken Lances advice to heart. That was a total win. 

“This is really calming.” Keith said, directly changing the subject and focusing on a bottle of yellow polish to his left. 

“Yeah, my sister and I would paint each other’s nails all the time so we’d have time to just chat and not really worry about anything. It was real nice. I miss it sometimes.” Keith was quiet for a moment, and Lance felt the other boys’ eyes on him.

“But I mean, this is nice too, nostalgic and stuff,” Lance paused for a moment, dipping the brush in the bottle but now painting the next nail. He looked up and Keith and said sincerely, “If you want we could do this more often.”

“No, I- I wouldn’t want to take that from you and your sister-”

“-you wouldn’t!” Lance interrupted, almost dropping the brush. Jesus Christ. “I mean, it was just us talking and painting our nails. If you don’t want to, we don’t have to, it’s just a suggestion.”

“If you’re sure it doesn’t re open a wound or anything, then um. Yeah, I’d like to.” Keith said, and Lance smiled. 

“Cool. Well, let those dry for a second while I go make a sandwich or something. You want anything?” 

“Just some juice maybe? If we have anything that doesn’t look alarming?” 

“No promises.”

Lance saw Keith smile as he walked out, resulting in his heart skipping a beat. Right after he closed the door, lance let out an exasperated sigh and took a moment to process everything. 

Keith liked having Lance paint his nails.

Keith wanted to paint Lances nails.

They were now gonna start annually painting each other’s nails. 

Lance was fucked. 

As he made his way to the kitchen, Lance tried his hardest to take it down a fuckin notch. His heartbeat was rapid and he felt like he was going to pass out. Everything with Keith was going so well. Too well. He didn’t even process anything he was doing, which caused him to fuck up his sandwich about five times. It felt a little too surreal, the fact the he’d finally gotten past the awful stage of him treating Keith like his worst enemy and moving on to actually getting to know him. Becoming friends. 

Then a thought crossed Lances mind. What if… Keith was homophobic? He stopped dead in his tracks, because fuck, he had no idea what he’d do. As he searched the fridge for something for Keith, Lance raked his hands through his hair and took a deep breath. He was debating on a lot of things in that moment, whether to get Keith the kind that sort of tasted like grape juice or the kind that sort of tasted like orange. Whether or not to cut his sandwich in half and offer some to Keith, because he knew he hadn’t eaten but Lance didn’t want to come off as fully flirtations yet. Or, you know, literally coming out to him as bisexual.

Was lance willing to risk his connection with Keith if for some reason Keith was against his bisexuality? In the end, a friendship was better then nothing, right? 

Except, it kind of wasn’t. Not if lance had to live with the fact that the boy he was head over heels for may be disgusted if he knew that. He knew damn well that it would eat him alive if he didn’t tell Keith and get a rejection. 

Because in the end, no friendship at all is better then a closed off and one sided one. Lance knew that for a fact. 

So it was decided, right then and there in the kitchen. Lance was gonna come out to Keith. Sure, the idea still wasn’t processed fully at all, and Lance had absolutely zero idea how to go about it, but that didn’t stop him from grabbing the two cups of juice and plate before walking back to his room. He was Lance, after all, and since when does he give anything a second thought?

When Lance arrived back in his room, he found Keith sitting on his bed and studying a picture frame lance kept on his bedside table. 

It was a picture of him and his family, along with Hunk and his moms. It was taken the day the two left for the garrison, and Lance usually kept the photo in his Jacket pocket for reassurance in stressful situations. Once they left Earth, it just freaked Lance out so much that he’d loose it he decided to frame it and keep it in his room. 

Keith noticed Lances presence and held the frame up to face lance. “Are these you and Hunk’s families?” 

Lance closed the door and walked over to the bed, sitting the plate and cup on the side table (where the frame was sitting) and plopped down next to Keith. “Yeah, those two are my parents and those two are Hunks moms. The rest are my siblings.” 

He was about to explain when the photo was taken, when Keith went, “Moms?” 

Lance paused for a second, before taking a deep breath and saying, “Yeah, moms. To be honest they were kinda like my second parents, My house was always extremely noisy and busy so through middle and high school I kinda lived there. Why?”

Keith hesitated, “It’s nothing, I just didn’t know.”

“… Do you have a problem with it?”

“What? No, no no no not at all, I just, um…” Keith didn’t look at Lance as he ran his thumb over the side of the frame, he looked… scared, almost. Like a little kid scared to tell his mom he woke up from a nightmare. 

“Can I tell you something?” He said, looking up at lance. 

Lance nodded, “Yeah, of course.”

“I… um. Okay, to start, I’m not really used to having friends. I push people away, and generally it’s hard for me to connect with anyone. But you actually try to be my friend, I guess? You didn’t half ass it and then give up on me, and sure we fought a bunch at first but we both moved on from that. So please… please promise me you’re not gonna like, freak out and ditch me over what I’m gonna tell you, okay?”

Lance said “okay, I promise.” Before he even gave himself time to process what he’d been told. His heart was racing, his lungs were heavy, and his hands were clammy and weak. They were closer to each other than they were before, and Lance was scared to breathe.

“I’m gay.”

And all Lance managed, as his heart literally stopped and his mind went blank was, “what.”

Keith didn’t say anything, he just shrunk into himself a bit more then he already had, before Lance officially caught up to speed and almost laughed as the situation. 

“Wait no holy shit Keith, thanks for telling me, uh, oh my god-” this is when Lance finally began laughing, and once he started he couldn’t stop. 

Keith stared, completely lost, before Lance managed, “I… I literally just decided like five minutes ago to come out to you as bisexual, dude.”

And Keith, out of sheer confusion, began to laugh a bit too, before, “Wait holy shit you’re bi?”

Lance sat up, brushing his hair back and turned to Keith with an exasperated “yeah dude.”

They stared at each other for a moment, both nerve wrecked from coming out and drained from nervous and confused laughing/giggle fits. Lance stared at Keith for a moment, and felt himself swoon as Keith brushed his bangs back and sighed. He felt that tension again, the strange intimacy he got from holding Keith’s hand. 

The room was absolutely quiet, but Lances thoughts were so loud he couldn’t tell. He felt his heartbeat speed up again as Keith seemed, ever so slightly, to edge closer to him. Lance shifted a bit, edging his hand toward Keith’s and timidly intertwining the tips of their fingers. Keith recoiled back, causing Lances to flinch and his breath to hitch, but Keith instantly took full hold of Lances hand and pressed his lips together, anxiously glancing from their hands and back to Lance. 

“Funny thing about me being bi,” Lance said nervously, looking at their hands, “you were kind of the one that made me realize I was. Back in like, 8 or 9th grade, you handed me a pen and my first thought when I looked at you was something like, ‘fuck, he’s cute.’”

Keith ducked his head when he laughed, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

There was a pause where the two just sat there, smiling dumbly and looking anywhere but at each other. Lance looked up first, and finally Keith met his eyes when Lance finally asked, “Can I kiss you?”

Keith brought his free hand up, cupped Lance’s cheek, and swiftly pressed their lips together. The noise in Lance’s head seemed to get louder and louder until- the pen dropped, and there was silence. The quiet room, the heat radiating off his cheeks, his heart thudding as he kissed Keith back, and the warm feeling he felt all the way to his fingertips every time they pulled apart to breathe and Keith pulled him back in. 

Years and years of subtle pining building up, all to go to this, this moment, and Lance thought he’d be prepared, but by god he wasn’t. Nothing could have ever prepared him for this feeling. Eventually Lance pulled back, pressing their foreheads together and breathing heavily. 

“Still want me to finish your nails, or do you wanna keep on making out?”

Naturally, they went with the latter.


End file.
